


To Watch the Minutes of This Night

by SylvanWitch



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slightly AU Episode Tag for XVIII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:37:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is founded on the premise that in the immediate aftermath of the rape of Charleston, Flint no longer commands the Spanish Man o' War and that Miranda's death--and the myriad horrors that led up to it--have unmanned Flint in some invisible but fundamental way.  </p><p>Or, Charles Vane provides dubious comfort to Captain Flint in the dark watches of the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Watch the Minutes of This Night

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Посторожить мгновенья этой ночи](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8334700) by [rose_rose (Escargot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escargot/pseuds/rose_rose)



> This was inspired by my desire to see Flint, too exhausted to sleep and still coated in blood and ashes, taking up space on Vane's quarterdeck, where Vane seeks him out and makes him an unexpected offer. Mostly, I wanted to figure out what state of mind Flint would have to be in to take Vane up on his offer. 
> 
> The title is from _Hamlet_ , Act I, in which the brooding prince invites himself along on night patrol in the hopes of confronting the ghost of his father. It seemed appropriate.

“This is _my_ quarterdeck.” 

 

Trust Vane to maintain that tradition of the Navy, that there was one space sacrosanct for the captain of any ship, pirate or no.

 

Flint knew that the quarterdeck was Vane’s, just as he knew that the boards beneath his feet needed oakum and that the aft watch was asleep in the rigging.  He mentioned none of this, however, Vane’s voice, like a keel in the shallows, grating on him.

 

Flint felt the rail beneath his forearms where he leaned, looking at the purling black water but not seeing it.  The wood thrummed with the steady headway they were making, six knots or he missed his guess.  They’d had improbably sweet following winds since they’d left the smoking ruins of Charleston behind them.  The fresh breeze had almost blown Flint clean of the stench of powder and blood.

 

“What are you thinking?”  Vane’s voice was one part curiosity and two parts suspicion, as if he suspected that Flint was plotting mutiny.

 

In fact, he’d been overcome by mutinous memories:  of a drafty dining room, of warm lips against his, a sure hand at his nape, of the unexpected but welcome weight of sudden understanding that had come over him in the moment Thomas had first kissed him.

 

And he’d been remembering Miranda in better days, her laugh and sparkling eyes, the weight of her hair as it brushed his chest, and the way Thomas’ approving voice had rumbled against James’ back where he rested, sweaty and boneless, between his lovers.

 

Again, Flint said nothing.  Beside him Vane shifted to rest his elbows against the rail, facing not the water nor Flint but inward, surveying his kingdom.  He possessed now more than Flint had perhaps ever had, save principles, which had brought Flint nothing but sorrow, and Flint wanted to warn him, even turned to take in the aquiline profile, the proud nose and strong jaw, the steely eyes that had so often glittered with hatred for Flint.

 

He had meant to say that the quest for autonomy was a fool’s dream, that freedom, like all the other abstracts, meant only suffering.

 

But he’d caught Vane looking back at him, the honed gaze focused on Flint’s weathered face.  He could imagine how he looked, smudged and ashen, bruised with exhaustion and an excess of grief.  Did Vane see defeat in him? 

 

Inside him deep, something stirred, and pride curled his lip into a derisive smirk.

 

“I owe you my life, insofar as it has not already been entailed, but I do not owe you my thoughts.”

 

Vane’s shrug was constructed indifference.  “Your life is your own.”

 

“Really?  And you rescued me out of some altruism heretofore unapparent in your character?”

 

Vane snorted.  “Stop talking to me like I’m your bookish whore.”

 

Flint stood upright then, hands clenching the rail until he felt splinters beneath his ragged nails.

 

Vane didn’t so much as shift his weight; he clearly felt no threat from Flint, who had to admit, if only to himself, that he was in no condition to teach Vane manners, a herculean, if not impossible, task even when Flint was in fighting trim.

 

He felt the tension leach from him with the silent admission that Miranda no longer needed defending.  That, indeed, when she’d most required it, he’d been utterly helpless.  Weariness flooded Flint like warm water closing over his head.  He closed his eyes against a sudden prickle of tears and told himself it meant nothing.

 

“She was a better person than you or I have ever been.”  Flint’s voice startled him; he hadn’t meant to speak.  He sounded creaking and thin, too much tension stretched over old canvas.  At any moment he would fly apart, shredded by the wind that had only moments before seemed a boon.

 

He caught Vane’s grudging nod of concession out of the corner of his eye and resumed his earlier pose, if only to try to hide the trembling that had begun in his core and spread to his shoulders and knees.

 

“You should get some rest,” Vane said a minute or an hour later.  Flint had been lost again in memories.  “There are plenty of unclaimed hammocks below.”

 

Flint had tried; he’d gotten halfway down the gangway to the gun deck when the phantom slaughterhouse stench of viscera and singed blood had driven him back up into the salt air. 

 

As if reading his thoughts, Vane added, “Or you can bunk in my cabin if you’d rather.”

 

Flint turned his head again to examine the man beside him.  Vane wasn’t looking at Flint; his eyes seemed to be fixed on a ragged gap in the far railing.  Somehow, Flint didn’t think the captain was considering repairs.  He sensed a treacherous reef hidden beneath the calm surface of Vane’s demeanor.

 

He must have taken too long to answer, a betrayal in itself, for Vane did look at him then, straightening away from the rail with the feline grace he had always possessed and turning to face him less than an arm’s-length away. 

 

Flint straightened and turned too, feeling suddenly trapped, though the star-strewn sky yawned overhead and the sea stretched out in every direction, an indifferent witness to Flint’s discomfort.

 

“What do you want?”  Flint was too tired for subtlety, sick of the politics his every interaction seemed to invite.  His worn heart beat raggedly against his ribs as he waited for Vane to answer him.

 

“It should be obvious from my invitation what I’m offering.”

 

Flint made an abortive motion, as if he might strike Vane or shove past him.  “Speak plainly.”

 

“Rest.  Comfort.  In whatever fashion,” and here Vane waved his hand, as if to suggest any and all possibilities, “you prefer.”

 

Flint knew he was being baited, knew what Vane was looking for, but he no longer harbored enough energy for denial.  He’d spent long years pretending to be things he was not:  A fearless pirate, ruthless and cruel.  A missionary for democracy seeking the conversion of savage men and women.  A man who had cuckolded his best friend. 

 

He should have died on that scaffold.  He should have been buried in the cold clay beside Miranda, no stone above them, nothing to complete the final chapter of their pathetic story.

 

What did it matter if he gave up the last pretense in the long list of lies his life had become?

 

Flint closed the space between them until they were almost touching chest to chest.  He was aware of other eyes upon them, that the privacy of the quarterdeck was an illusion, a polite conceit at best, an awful evasion at worst.

 

Still, Flint didn’t move, merely stared into Vane’s face, which had been carved into shadows by the vague starlight overhead.  Flint couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, only feel the relentless weight of his gaze, implacable and patient in the way of all predators. 

 

He had had too short a time with Thomas to grow used to the language of their desire.  So much had been new to him then; stunned with wonder, he’d struggled to say what he’d felt and meant, and it had always been Thomas, gentle, patient Thomas, who had brought James’ thoughts to breathing life against his skin.

 

Flint wanted nothing now of gentleness or patience.  He wanted no tenderness, nor mercy.  He deserved nothing so much as immolation, but if there was even a faint spark of fire within him, he couldn’t feel it now, and so his words were not so much fierce surrender as taunting supplication.

 

“Would you have me?” 

 

Vane’s smirk widened into something wicked, a smile like a shark, all teeth and bad intentions.

 

“Any way I can, Captain Flint,” he answered after a space of heartbeats.  If there was a challenge yet in his voice, Flint could not discern it. “You should go ahead of me, take some rest.  I have to see the aft guard about dereliction of duty, and then I’ll join you.”

The captain’s quarters were spacious, though dark, only a single bull’s-eye lantern swaying on a hook to starboard of the door.  This Flint retrieved, moving about carefully, lighting only two of the hanging lamps, which cast more shadow than light, all told.  It suited his mood.

 

He’d been idly running his eyes over the Spanish titles of the books in the built-in shelves, deliberately thinking of nothing in particular, when the door to the cabin opened and then closed, bar lock driven home with a definitive thunk.  Then he heard the windows closing, and the breeze died in the room.

 

He looked up to find Vane prowling toward the sideboard, where he retrieved a bottle and two elaborately filigreed silver tankards.

 

“To the spoils of war,” Vane said after he’d poured and offered one to Flint.  It was unclear if he intended the fine tankards themselves or Flint or perhaps both.

 

Flint tipped his tankard in answer and tossed back the whiskey, feeling its peaty burn in the back of his throat long after he’d swallowed. 

 

“Too much of that, Captain, and you’ll have no vigor for the sport.”

 

Flint grimaced.  This had been a bad idea, he realized now.  No matter how much he yearned to obliterate himself, to strip away the lies and just be the man he was— _such_ as he was, what was left of him—Flint didn’t know, now that he was here, if he could give himself over to Vane’s dubious ministrations.

 

“It’s a little late to play the tongue-tied maiden, Flint.”  Beneath the teasing tone there was another layer of meaning, a subtlety of intention that Flint couldn’t parse.

 

Then Vane spoke more plainly:  “This is your last chance.  If you’ve changed your mind, there’s the door.  I’ve been many things in my time, most of them bad, but I’m not here to punish you.”

 

Flint started visibly at the word.  Had that been his intention, truly—to allow Vane to punish him, humiliate him in a fashion that exposed his deepest truth?

 

Flint shook his head and set his tankard down with a crack that was muffled in the stuffy cabin air.

 

“I haven’t changed my mind, Vane, but I want to know why. Why this, with me, now?  You’ll forgive me if I’ve been laboring under the assumption that your affections are more…exclusive.”

 

“You think I only like cunny,” he translated baldly, smirking at Flint’s attempt to be delicate.  “Come now, Captain, you’re a man of the world—more particularly of our world.  You know we pirates are a less _discriminating_ breed.”

 

It was Flint’s turn to be blunt:  “You’ll fuck anything.”

 

Vane grinned in acknowledgement and removed his shirt in an easy, fluid motion that showed his tanned skin and the slide of his hard muscles to best advantage.

 

God, but he was a specimen. 

 

Vane raised an eyebrow, smile growing more knowing as he watched Flint watching him.  “You going to strip yourself, or are we playing captain and cabin boy?”

 

“I’m no boy,” Flint growled, moving to take his own shirt off.  Where he’d bled, the fabric stuck to his shirt, and he hissed as it reopened a gash on his shoulder and another along his ribs under his right arm.

 

Vane rested the spread fingers of his hand on Flint’s collarbone, and Flint stilled, eyes on Vane, who was scrutinizing Flint’s wounds almost clinically.

 

“You should have seen the physician.”

 

“You have one aboard?”  Flint’s skepticism was well-earned; Vane’s crew hadn’t built their reputation on book-learning.

 

Vane nodded.  “More or less.”

 

“Later,” Flint said, tone dismissive.  Now that Vane was before him half-naked in the yellow light, Flint felt a growing heat that wiped away the pain of his wounds and all other thoughts but for skin and sweat and the smell of another man grappling with him.

 

Vane’s expression shifted to a different kind of scrutiny, this one more about appetite than assessment.  He slid his fingers down Flint’s chest, following the line of ginger hair down his abdomen, which jumped and shuddered under Vane’s sure touch, to curl around the waistband of his trousers.

 

He tugged hard, pulling Flint off-balance, so that he instinctively threw a hand up, which landed on the solid wall of Vane’s chest.  A sound rumbled out of Vane as Flint’s little finger dragged across Vane’s nipple, and Flint did it again, more deliberately, just to hear him make that sound again. 

 

“Take these off,” Vane commanded, tugging once more before stepping back, out of Flint’s reach, to make quick work of his own boots and trousers. 

 

Then, as Flint did as he was told, mind starting to unmoor from himself, feeling his desire in the half-hard cock he palmed, he watched Vane pull a rolled rug from beneath the Spanish captain’s enormous desk and unfurl it on the space between desk and door.

 

An object of such inconvenient luxury was ridiculous on a fighting vessel, and Flint himself had had it removed before an hour had passed in his impromptu captaincy.

 

“Perhaps this is the use the original captain intended for it,” Vane suggested, picking up on Flint’s expression. 

 

“I’m sure he buggered all of his midshipmen here,” Flint agreed, something like actual humor fighting its way onto his face. 

 

Then the humor dissipated, to be replaced with a singing tension.  Vane’s expression was neutral, but Flint could see a muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching, could see that he was holding himself still, waiting for some signal, all his patient, predatory grace leashed by Flint’s continued reticence.

 

Vane was half-hard himself, cock filling ruddy and long against his thigh.  His muscles, chiseled by labor and long years of enduring hardship, carved a path to his cock, inviting examination.  Flint let his eyes linger, then followed the line of Vane’s thighs down his strong calves to his ankles and across his long, narrow feet, with their surprisingly delicate tracery of blue veins.

 

There was a strange beauty about Vane, a contrast in the vulnerable places—at his wrists, behind his ear, where his hair softened to fuzz at the temple—that made Flint oddly unsure.  He wanted nothing but the annihilating blade of Vane’s body, the enormous power of him married to the passion he used to fuck or kill with identical focus.

 

He didn’t want to remember that Vane was a man who had dreams and fears, a man capable of heart-pain and suffering.

 

Were he to see in Vane a mirror of his own naked need, Flint would fall apart, become nothing, not even a man, just a mindless thing, insensible flotsam bobbing useless in the wreck of his life.

 

Something of his pain might have crossed his face, or maybe it was the weariness that washed over him, dragging his shoulders out of their proud line, dropping his tired eyes from Vane’s face.  Whatever Vane saw there, he took it as a signal and moved toward Flint across the rug’s plush breadth, reaching a hand to hook behind Flint’s nape and pull him into a plundering, wet kiss that robbed Flint of volition and weakened his knees.

 

Vane’s hand was a vise around his neck, his tongue a command for total attention, and Flint gave himself to the wave of desire that rose up in him then, growling into Vane’s mouth as Vane’s other hand wrapped around Flint’s cock and tugged, rough and insistent, until Flint felt his knees give way and Vane followed him down to the rug, sliding between his spread thighs and pinning him there, pelvis to pelvis, not giving him any quarter but only pressing his advantage.

 

Vane moved his lips from Flint’s mouth to his jaw, then to the tender place where his shoulder met his neck.  He bit down hard, drawing a shout from Flint, and then stripped Flint’s cock in a sure, steady rhythm, his whiskey and gravel voice panting obscenities against Flint’s sweaty neck as he eased out of the bite and began to rut against him.

 

Flint bucked against the demanding pace that Vane set, feeling the pressure building in his core, thighs trembling and the pooling power of release drawing his balls up tight against his body.

Vane’s hand on his cock broke its rhythm as Vane pulled away long enough to capture his own cock as well.

 

Flint’s hand on Vane’s stilled his motion, and he glanced down into Flint’s face from inches away, his breath gusting damp against Flint’s cheek, thin trail of sweat dripping from his temple onto Flint’s neck.

 

“Fuck me,” Flint said, somewhere between question and command.  He watched Vane’s eyes, waiting to see the gloating triumph there or some other indication that Vane was accepting Flint’s utter surrender.

 

Vane did smile, but it wasn’t an ugly thing, nothing of ownership or conquest in it.

 

“With pleasure,” he assured Flint as he rose in a single, fluid motion and padded over to a drawer built in beside a cramped bunk.  This he opened, taking out a stoppered bottle, and then closed the drawer with a protest of swelling wood.  The clink of the tethered stopper tapping against the side of the bottle seemed over loud to Flint, who was fixated on the oily golden fluid as it spilled over Vane’s long, clever fingers.

 

As he dropped between Flint’s thighs and lowered his hand, Flint caught the heady, cloying odor of sandalwood, and a creaking laugh leaked out of him.

 

“I was joking about the midshipmen,” Flint explained when Vane paused to give him a raised eyebrow.

 

“The Spanish take their buggering seriously,” Vane answered, one fingertip ghosting over Flint’s opening, drawing a gasp from him.  “As do I,” he added, pushing in to the first knuckle and then waiting, eyes on Flint’s face.

 

Flint nodded, a short, sharp jerk, feeling exposed like this, Vane above him, touching him only where his knees brushed Flint’s thighs and at that other, more intimate point.  He wanted rough and ready, not this careful preparation, and he thrust his hips up impatiently, earning a growling chuckle from Vane, who obliged by piercing him with the length of the oiled finger.

 

Flint clenched against the burn, closed his eyes at the sensation, breathed out and tried to relax.  Vane gave him no time, pushing in with a second finger against Flint’s resistance, and the burn increased, wringing a hiss out of Flint before he pushed with his muscles and felt the sense of intrusion ease into something more accommodating.

 

Vane worked his two fingers at a ruthless pace, crooking them until he struck a spot inside Flint that brought him up off the rug in a curl.  He threw his head back, strangling on the shout that wanted to tear its way out of him.

 

“Now,” he managed on a strangled whisper.  “Do it.”

 

Vane pulled his fingers out without care of Flint’s tender flesh and slicked his cock, then wrapped his hot hands around the backs of Flint’s thighs and yanked him roughly toward him, lining up without pause and pushing into him with the same relentless focus he used in battle.  Flint gasped, wildly aroused, uncertain which was more likely to undo him—the way Vane watched his cock disappearing into Flint’s clutching hole or the way it felt to be stretched and full in a way he hadn’t been in years.

 

He’d forgotten how much it unmanned him to writhe like this, self steadily obliterated by a spreading fire that left him unable to take a full breath or speak more than in broken curses.

 

“F-fuck,” he stuttered as Vane pulled back and then slammed home again, Flint feeling Vane’s heavy balls smacking against his ass, hearing the slap of flesh on flesh as Vane set an unforgiving rhythm that drew deep grunts out of Flint.

 

Above him, Vane’s arms strained to bring Flint closer, to draw him tight against Vane’s thrusting hips.  Sweat slid in rivulets down his burnished skin.  Muscles corded in his neck and a feral smile twisted his mouth into a mask of animal hunger.

 

“Touch yourself,” Vane commanded, and Flint obeyed him without thought, stroking his aching cock once and again, feeling the pressure building inside of him like a storm about to break across the bow, St. Elmo’s Fire turning the world into flashes of blinding white as he heaved in the surge and spilled against his belly.  He felt his muscles contracting around Vane’s cock, watched through streaming sweat as Vane’s grace at last abandoned him and he rutted wildly and erratically, gripping Flint’s thighs with bruising intensity until he came at last with a bitten curse, shoving himself deeper, it seemed, than was possible before a flood of hot seed wrung a low, broken moan out of Flint.

 

At last, Vane eased his grip on Flint’s thighs and lowered them both down onto the rug, still joined.  Vane bracketed Flint with shaking arms, head dropped between them as he panted harshly.  Flint could feel the press of Vane’s hard abdomen against his pelvic bone, could feel a cooling trickle of seed from his hole, knew when Vane shifted a little and slid free that he would feel empty and bereft.

 

For several long minutes they were motionless except for the rise and fall of their chests.  At last, Vane pushed himself up to his knees and sat back on his heels, heedless of the mess drying on them both, and looked down at Flint, who at last opened his eyes, feeling Vane’s gaze like a touch.

 

“I’d wager the last captain never had it so good,” Vane offered then, as close to a kindness as he would probably ever come.

 

“I’m glad I rate above a midshipman,” Flint agreed, smiling crookedly, though it cost him in effort.  Exhaustion was swamping him like great waves after a wrecking storm, and he wanted to sink into the encompassing darkness and sleep there in the dark, rocking deep.

 

Vane stood, offering Flint a hand up, and then, handing him his trousers, shoved him unceremoniously toward the coffin-like bunk.

 

“It’s not especially comfortable, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

 

Flint didn’t bother to demure.  He _was_ a beggar in this world now:  No ship, no command, no life until he came once more to Nassau and even that in question.  As he stood, he felt a dull ache in his ass that reminded him why he’d sought refuge under Vane’s command, and he decided to leave off thinking for a while more.

 

As Flint moved toward the bunk, Vane rolled up the carpet and stowed it out of the way, and then tidied up their clothes into piles, pulling his own trousers on and settling eventually in the captain’s chair behind the great desk.

 

Flint sat gingerly and then stretched out in the bunk.  He greeted the heaviness of sleep like an old friend and sank gratefully onto the perfumed canvas ticking that served as a mattress, finding something fitting in the narrow grave of a bed. Surrounded by the stirring scent of sandalwood and the lingering stench of sex, Flint closed his eyes against the future, feeling if not safe then, at least for a time, secure as Vane kept watch in the night.


End file.
